born in pella (us)

HI

I was born in Pella (Iowa) in Marion County USA in 1974. My great grand father, an economic and religious migrant from Zealand in 1847, is one of the founders of this historical village. I completed my BA in the Arts at Central College of Pella (1997-2001) from where I participated in a student exchange programme to Leiden (NL) in 2002. On my return to Pella I successfully applied to undertake post graduate study at the Reiksacademy in Amsterdam.

Sluierhof recognizes the paradox of liberalism and anxiety in the cultural imprint of Dutch history and modernity. This sensibility is particularly pertinent at this present time, demonstrated by the current fragmentation of ideologies impacting on economic migrants and an emerging tribalism in the response to religious diversity. Her childhood is part of the lineage of oral histories and narrative that seek to understand the legacy of mid nineteenth century religious dissent. The annual Tulip Time Festival and Vermeer flour mill in Pella being indicative of a connecting history with Holland.

Sluierhof makes visual work to explore paradox and accepts that collisions between emerging technologies in late modernity and current states of anxiety are complex. On the one hand, social networks and the internet can be witnessed as a force for positive change in dissolving the space between private tyrannies and public freedoms in the middle-east. On the other hand, when these same systems deliver twenty-four hour access to gendered consumerism and ever more subtle forms of social and sexual control its consequent anxieties are emotionally loaded in a different way. Sluierhof’s connection with the international community of the Reiksacademy challenged her to work with these dilemmas. In her latest works she focuses on sex and erotica as a subject matter.

from left to right: The Vermeer Mill, Town Center, Monument during the tulip festival in Pella, Iowa

Maria: I found lately there is this guy who made a documentary about Pella... of all places .... fabulous.....